Oooh, we love sugaring season and spent the afternoon at a couple of maple sugar farms today.

The kids are hosting some international Flat Stanleys right now so we took the travelers along to learn about sugaring season since only a small portion of the world actually produces the stuff.

The circled area on this globe at Snell's Family Farm indicates the only area in the world that can produce maple syrup.

The kids love the maple cotton candy at Merrifield Farm in Gorham.

The open fire boiling at Merrifield Farm was actually pretty interesting. We had never seen a demonstration like this before.

At Snell's Family Farm in Bar Mills (yes, we did some driving today), the kids tasted the sap before it was boiled (clear liquid on right) and agreed with their assesment last year that it's "not that good (sweet)." Well, 2% sugar content from the tree's sap (how it comes out of the tree) versus the incredibly sweet syrup that is produced after boiling isn't a fair comparison anyway.

And if you were wondering, both kids drank at least a full cup of syrup today.

I bought Light Amber syrup at Merrifield Farms since that was what was available in the size jug I wanted. Then I bought a bottle of Dark Amber from Snell's. We did a little comparison at home and although you can see the slight difference, they both tasted the same. Yummy.

When we got home, L. decided to show our Flat Stanley friends all the treats we like to eat during this season.

My favorite is the maple cream, especially on crackers and toast. G. loves the maple fudge and cotton candy. L. likes the syrup on vanilla ice cream and drinking it directly from a cup. Fino likes the syrup on pancakes but he hasn't got the same kind of sweet tooth as the rest of us. He doesn't get nearly as excited about sugaring season as the females in our household.

I also must make a note here that although I lamented more than once about the lack of snow this winter, it was really nice that the mud was minimal today at the farms. There wasn't any snow to create the mudfest L. enjoyed last year.

That really broke me up.